Li Yizong, Coodley Sooyeon Noh, Chen Si, Dong Penghao, Li Su, Yao Shanshan
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA.
Mater Horiz. 2025 Mar 4;12(5):1568-1580. doi: 10.1039/d4mh01209g.
Soft actuators hold great promise for applications in biomimetic robots, artificial muscles, and drug delivery systems due to their adaptability in diverse environments. A critical aspect of designing thermally responsive soft actuators is to achieve spatially programmable actuation under a global thermal stimulus. Different local actuation behaviors can be encoded in one actuator to enable complex morphing structures for different tasks. However, it is challenging to achieve programmability beyond one or binary states. This work introduces a new grayscale ultraviolet (UV) light processing method to fabricate soft actuators with spatially tunable Young's modulus, enabling multiple programmable states in one actuator. Together with a liquid crystal elastomer actuation layer and a photothermal heating layer, the LCE programming layer with spatially programmable moduli allows different regions of the soft actuator to bend to controllable extents under a global thermal stimulus. Various shape morphing patterns can be encoded using UV photomasks with spatially controlled grayscales. Additionally, caterpillar-inspired robots capable of bi-directional crawling and octopus-arm-inspired structures for object manipulation are demonstrated. This work represents advancements in the programmability of thermally responsive soft actuators, laying the foundation for their applications in advanced soft robotic systems.
由于软致动器在不同环境中的适应性，它们在仿生机器人、人造肌肉和药物输送系统等应用中具有巨大潜力。设计热响应软致动器的一个关键方面是在全局热刺激下实现空间可编程致动。不同的局部致动行为可以编码在一个致动器中，以实现针对不同任务的复杂变形结构。然而，实现超过一种或二进制状态的可编程性具有挑战性。这项工作引入了一种新的灰度紫外（UV）光处理方法来制造具有空间可调杨氏模量的软致动器，从而在一个致动器中实现多个可编程状态。与液晶弹性体致动层和光热加热层一起，具有空间可编程模量的液晶弹性体编程层允许软致动器的不同区域在全局热刺激下弯曲到可控程度。可以使用具有空间控制灰度的UV光掩模编码各种形状变形图案。此外，还展示了能够双向爬行的毛毛虫启发式机器人和用于物体操纵的章鱼臂启发式结构。这项工作代表了热响应软致动器可编程性方面的进展，为其在先进软机器人系统中的应用奠定了基础。
